Despite a hoaxed press release stating otherwise, GE CEO will not be donating the company's $3.2 billion 2012 tax refund to the US Treasury. Getty

April 14, 2011

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A group called US Uncut has claimed responsibility for a fake GE press release that said the company would pay back its $3.2 billion federal tax refund out of a commitment to "social responsibility." GE has been under the gun since a March New York Times story revealed that the company, one of the nation's largest, employs an in-house team of accountants and lobbyists to avoid paying federal taxes. At least one major media outlet fell for the hoax — the Associated Press briefly ran it as a story before yanking it. (GE's stock, meanwhile, fell by 0.6 percent before righting itself when the truth came out Wednesday.) Did this stunt really achieve anything?

It just made news outlets look dumb: "Biggest victim of today's hoax?" says Giovanni Rodriguez at Forbes. "Not sure it's GE." The AP and other outlets who "ran with the fake story" looked considerably worse. Sure, news cycles can force bad decisions," but in this case, "there were some obvious clues about the release's authenticity." A big-time organization like the Associated Press should have known to be suspicious. "Big media falls for GE news hoax"